Thus did Te Kooti revenge himself upon those whom he deemed the cause of his banishment. But he had gone too far; for above the cry of horror which went up all over the island when the dismal news of the massacre[69] spread, was heard the stern oath of strong men, who vowed they would not rest until they had cleared the earth of this blood-soaked savage and his gang of murderers. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 69: Thirty-two Europeans were killed, men, women, and children.] CHAPTER XXVIII THE LAST RALLY The quality of massacre was absent in the west--less, perhaps, from choice than for lack of opportunity--but matters were not going as well as could be desired. There had been a change of governors, Sir George Grey having given place after more than seven years of anxious rule to Sir George Bowen, G.C.M.G. Bishop Selwyn, too, had left the country he had served so long and well; but to the troubled, wearied colonists, it seemed that governors might come and governors might go, and even bishops, but the war would go on for ever. For, while Te Kooti was snarling and ravening in the east, McDonnell's star, so long in the ascendant, was declining in the west, and the Pakeha generally were being rather hardly used. The "Year of the Lamb" had come to an end, and the Hauhau gave evidence of it by a triple murder,--three wholly inoffensive men, engaged in sawing wood in the bush, being slain and mutilated by them. Colonel McDonnell, foreseeing trouble, regarrisoned an old redoubt of the 14th Regiment at Turuturu Mokai with twenty-five men under Sub-Inspector Ross of the Constabulary. At dawn, on the 12th of July, four times as many Hauhau attacked the place, and in the stern fight which ensued killed Ross and seven others. Titokowaru would have made a clean sweep of the luckless twenty-five but for the timely arrival of Von Tempsky and his men from Waihi, less than three miles away, whence the flashes of the guns had been seen, though their reports could not be heard. McDonnell, tired of incessant skirmishing, determined to make a raid which should yield a decisive result one way or the other, and fixed the night of the 6th of September for his attempt. The friendly Whanganui strongly objected to move at that particular time, owing to an unfavourable augury by their _tohunga_ and, as it happened, their hesitation received curious justification. But McDonnell was not one to be turned aside from his purpose by augurs or omens, and the expedition left Waihi at midnight and plunged into the bush. Nobody seems to have had any clear idea of the whereabouts of Titokowaru, so the old method was adopted of moving through the bush until a beaten track was struck, and then following it whithersoever it led. This system had been tried upon former occasions with good results; but it was destined this time to fail.